Includes bibliographical references / Controversy surrounds the upstream petroleum industry. Although the benefit of petroleum resources is beyond dispute, the exploitation of petroleum resources comes at a price, as history has shown time and again. Not only does petroleum exploitation have detrimental effects on the environment, but host countries often are worse off than countries with little or no petroleum resources. This "resource curse" is partially the result of flawed regulatory frameworks for petroleum resource extraction in host countries. This thesis identifies three elements that must be present in a country's regulatory framework for petroleum extraction if the resource curse phenomenon is to be avoided and benefit s from petroleum are to be maximised. These elements are: transparency, accountability and a balance of interests between the petroleum companies and the host nation. Namibia and South Africa are not yet major players in the international upstream petroleum industry. There is accordingly not much academic engagement with petroleum law in these two jurisdictions. The courts have also not yet had the opportunity to scrutinise the legislation regulating the upstream petroleum industries of South Africa and Namibia. There are, however, indications that both countries may possess viable quantities of petroleum resources. In anticipation of the possibility of finding commercially viable quantities of petroleum, South Africa and Namibia have enacted legislation to regulate the upstream petroleum industry, but the efficiency of the legislation, specifically how it reflects the elements of transparency, accountability and balance of interest, have not yet been considered. The research for this thesis is driven by the question of how the regulatory framework for petroleum exploitation in South Africa and Namibia embraces the elements of transparency, accountability and balance of interest. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the regulatory frameworks for upstream petroleum resources in South Africa and Namibia in anticipation of the demands that will be placed on law as the sectors grow. In doing so, this thesis scrutinises the legislation in South Africa and Namibia to determine the extent to which the three crucial elements of transparency, accountability and balance of interest between the petroleum company and the host nation are reflected in the regulatory frameworks for petroleum resources.

The Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act, 2002 introduces a new mineral and petroleum law dispensation in South Africa. The introduction of the new dispensation follows the first democratic election in 1994 that required a reconsideration of the role of the state in the allocation and exploitation of mineral and petroleum resources. The state's right to sovereignty is realised by introducing the principle of state custodianship. Whilst the MPRDA does not define state custodianship, the courts have been hesitant in providing an interpretation. Historically, the majority of South Africans were excluded from the allocation and exploitation of mineral and petroleum resources caused by racial practices. The notion of state custodianship brings substantive changes to the regulation of mineral and petroleum resources. The state as custodian is responsible for regulating the nation's mineral and petroleum resources in accordance with the objectives determined by the MPRDA. As regulator, the state has been allocated increased control over prospecting and mining activities. This increased control must enhance the transformative goals of the new mineral and petroleum law dispensation whilst simultaneously considering the role of mineral and petroleum resources in the economic development of the country. In accordance with its responsibilities imposed in terms of the Constitution, the state must ensure that everyone benefits from mineral and petroleum exploitation. Such responsibilities must be exercised within the Constitutional imperative to avoid or minimize environmental harm The state as custodian owes a fiduciary duty towards the nation in respect of the minerals and petroleum resources. This fiduciary duty exists between the state and its citizens. The state must exercise its duty to the standard required of a fiduciary with regards to the property entrusted to it to regulate. Due to the nature of the concept of custodianship, the state is not the owner of mineral and petroleum resources. Whilst the landowner, and in certain instances the mineral rights holder, before the adoption of the MPRDA determined access to minerals, the state as custodian is now responsible for determining access to minerals. The joint interests of the South African nation as a whole is to be promoted by the state in its role as custodian. The public interest of access to and use of the mineral and petroleum resources determined by the MPRDA, and the Constitution must be safeguarded. The implementation of the object of equitable access to minerals is dependent on the state as custodian. The transformative role of the state is enhanced by the shifting of the basis of mineral law to public law. The administering of a state controlled mineral law system has led to the responsibilities of state custodianship having to be exercised within a public law environment. The interpretation of the state's duties as custodian is dependent on various considerations, some of them being the provisions of the MPRDA, the application of the principles of administrative law and the fiduciary nature of state custodianship.

A dynamic shift in the ownership, management and development of the country’s mineral heritage took place after the inauguration of the new political dispensation in South Africa in 1994. This resulted in the enactment of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act (28/2002) (MPRDA) in 2002. In accordance with the MPRDA the country’s mineral and petroleum resources are the common heritage of the people of South Africa and the State acts as the custodian of these resources for the benefit of all people. In this capacity, the State may determine and levy a fee or consideration payable in respect of these resources. The Minerals and Petroleum Resources Royalty Act (28/2008) (MPRRA) was enacted on 24 November 2008 to impose a mineral royalty on the extraction of South Africa’s mineral resources to compensate the nation for the depletion of its mineral wealth. This legislation is likely to have a significant impact on the South African mining industry. The aim of this study was to review the development of this legislation to gain an understanding of the issues considered when it was developed and to identify certain aspects of the MPRRA that may require further research in order to be improved in future. The analysis consists of a qualitative comparison of the draft versions of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Royalty Bill (MPRRB) and related commentary. The study recommends that legislators reconsider the level of royalties to be levied as well as the mechanism contained in the MPRRA to promote downstream beneficiation to ensure optimal benefits from extracting the nation’s mineral resources. Further research of these aspects could improve the South African mineral royalty regime in future. Copyright / Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Taxation / unrestricted

No abstract available. / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / Centre for Human Rights / unrestricted

Thesis (LLM. (Development and Management Law)) -- University of Limpopo, 2013 / In terms of the previous mining legislation in South Africa, mineral rights were held privately and in some instances by the state. The Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act (MPRDA) now vests all mineral rights in the state. Through the transitional provisions included in the MPRDA, mining companies can convert their existing ‘old order’ rights to prospect and/or mine (previously granted under the now repealed Minerals Act) to the ‘new order’ rights introduced by the MPRDA. The purpose of the MPRDA is to ensure the sustainable utilisation of South Africa’s mineral and petroleum resources within a national environmental framework policy which primarily protects sensitive environments and the interests of affected communities, organisations and individuals, while promoting socio-economic development.

Unconventional resources will play an important role in filling the gap between supply and demand for future world energy. In North America, the impact of unconventional resources on energy supplies is growing continuously. However, around the world they have yet to serve as a major contributor to the energy supply, partly due to the scarcity of information about the exploration and development technologies required to produce them. Basin analogy can be used to estimate the undiscovered petroleum potential in a target basin by finding a geological analog that has been explored enough that its resource potential is fully understood. In 2006, Singh developed a basin analog system BASIN (Basin Analog Systems INvestigation) in detail that could rapidly and consistently identify analogous reference basins for a target basin. My research focused on continuing that work, comprehensively improving the basin analog system in four areas: the basin analog method; the database; the software functionality; and the validation methods. The updated system compares basins in terms of probability distributions of geological parameters. It compensates for data that are sparse or that do not represent basin-level geological parameters, and it expands the system's ability to compare widely varying quantitative parameters. Because the updated BASIN database contains more geologic and petroleum systems information on reference (existing) basins, it identifies analog basins more accurately and efficiently. The updated BASIN software was developed by using component-based design and data visualization techniques that help users better manage large volumes of information to understand various data objects and their complicated relationships among various data objects. Validation of the improved BASIN software confirms its accuracy: if a basin selected as the target basin appears in the reference basin list with other basins, the target basin is 100% analogous only to itself. Furthermore, when a target basin is analyzed by both BASIN and PRISE (Petroleum Resources Investigation and Summary Evaluation) software, results of the improved BASIN closely matched the PRISE results, which provides important support for using BASIN and PRISE together to quantitatively estimate the resource potential in frontier basins.

Historically, irresponsible mining companies have escaped their duty to rehabilitate. The Mineral Petroleum Resources Development Act does not oblige mining companies to rehabilitate if their operations ceased before the Minerals Act came into force. In the court case De Beers Consolidated Mines v Ataqua Mining (Pty) Ltd and others 2006 1 SA 432 (T), the court held that the Mineral Petroleum Resources Development Act is not applicable to tailings dumps that were created through mining that had been conducted under the Minerals Act. This ruling leaves unanswered the question about who would be liable to rehabilitate old order tailings dumps once such tailings dumps are re-mined or not mined at all. The aim of this dissertation is to determine whether companies that ceased mining operations before the Mineral Petroleum Resources Development Act came into effect could be held liable for rehabilitation by introducing the scenario that applied in the De Beers court case. / Thesis (LL.M. (Environmental Law))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010

Historically, irresponsible mining companies have escaped their duty to rehabilitate. The Mineral Petroleum Resources Development Act does not oblige mining companies to rehabilitate if their operations ceased before the Minerals Act came into force. In the court case De Beers Consolidated Mines v Ataqua Mining (Pty) Ltd and others 2006 1 SA 432 (T), the court held that the Mineral Petroleum Resources Development Act is not applicable to tailings dumps that were created through mining that had been conducted under the Minerals Act. This ruling leaves unanswered the question about who would be liable to rehabilitate old order tailings dumps once such tailings dumps are re-mined or not mined at all. The aim of this dissertation is to determine whether companies that ceased mining operations before the Mineral Petroleum Resources Development Act came into effect could be held liable for rehabilitation by introducing the scenario that applied in the De Beers court case. / Thesis (LL.M. (Environmental Law))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010

South Africa entered a new era on 1 May 2004 with the commencement of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act 28 of 2002 (hereafter the MPRDA). Section 3 states that the mineral and petroleum resources are the common heritage of all South Africans. Due to the fact that a new era of mineral rights has been introduced, it is necessary to investigate the effect of the new Act on the process of estate planning. This study is focused to determine which of the rights found in the MPRDA can be classified as assets in an estate, and which of these rights should be discounted for in the process of estate planning that is focused on the inheritance of assets. The study firstly deals with the mineral rights as property in terms of section 25 of the Constitution. After a brief synopsis has been given of the old order mineral rights, the focus falls on the nature and transferability of the new order mineral rights and the implications that the said rights have on the process of estate planning. / Thesis (LL.M. (Estate Law))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010.

South Africa entered a new era on 1 May 2004 with the commencement of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act 28 of 2002 (hereafter the MPRDA). Section 3 states that the mineral and petroleum resources are the common heritage of all South Africans. Due to the fact that a new era of mineral rights has been introduced, it is necessary to investigate the effect of the new Act on the process of estate planning. This study is focused to determine which of the rights found in the MPRDA can be classified as assets in an estate, and which of these rights should be discounted for in the process of estate planning that is focused on the inheritance of assets. The study firstly deals with the mineral rights as property in terms of section 25 of the Constitution. After a brief synopsis has been given of the old order mineral rights, the focus falls on the nature and transferability of the new order mineral rights and the implications that the said rights have on the process of estate planning. / Thesis (LL.M. (Estate Law))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010.